In the field of hand-held or portable air blowers, vibration damping (i.e., anti-vibration) structures have been in practical use, where vibration damping members are interposed between an operating handle to be gripped by a human operator and a drive source, such as an engine, of the air blower. Among examples of the conventionally-known vibration damping structures is one that has rubber-made cylindrical vibration damping members interposed between various components in a hand-held or portable air blower (for example, Japanese Utility Model Publication No. HEI-6-49865).
FIG. 19 is a sectional view of the conventional vibration damping structure of the portable air blower 201 disclosed in the utility model publication, which comprises an engine (not shown), engine cover 202 and operating handle 203. Such a vibration damping structure is provided on front and rear portions of the operating handle 203 and located inwardly of the engine cover 202. As shown, the vibration damping structure, provided in each of the front and rear portions of the operating handle 203, includes a cylindrical vibration damping member 204 made of rubber and interposed between the handle 203 and the engine cover 202 (specifically, mounting seat 205 projecting from the cover 202). Coordinate axes X, Y and Z shown in a lower section of the figure indicate three mutually-perpendicular directions of linear movement; “X” represents a horizontal linear movement axis (perpendicular to the sheet of the figure), “Y” represents a vertical axis perpendicular to the X axis, and “Z” represents a horizontal axis perpendicular to both of the X and Y axes.
However, although each of the vibration damping members 204 in the air blower 201 can absorb vertical vibrations (i.e., vibrations in the Y-axis direction) and back-and-forth vibrations (i.e., vibrations in the X-axis direction) to thereby reduce the vibrations passing to the handle 203, it can not absorb left-and-right vibrations (i.e., vibrations in the Z-axis direction) due to interference by the mounting seat 205 and handle 203. Because of the left-and-right (i.e., Z-axis direction) vibrations passing to the operating handle 203, the vibration damping member 204 can not suppress the vibrations in all of the three (X-, Y- and Z-axis) directions.
The vibration damping structure in the air blower 201 is also disadvantageous in that it would take a considerable amount of time and labor to install the operating handle 203. Namely, for installation of the operating handle 203, the vibration damping members 204 are first passed through the two (i.e., front and rear) mounting seats 205 of the engine cover 202 in such a manner that the damping members 204 are fitted over and hence retained at their middle by the corresponding seats 205 against accidental detachment. Then, the handle halves of the operating handle 203 are fitted around the damping members 204. Such operations are very cumbersome and time consuming.